Experiencing Competition As a Coach

I have coached the under 11 sports hall athletics group for the past 4 years and I have never attended any of their competitions. This has been mainly down to my work commitments at the weekends and traveling to the competitions can be tough as a student. My view on competitions at the under 11's age group is that they shouldn't really be competing however, lots of athletes and clubs compete at local and regional competitions. I believe that competition is for more experienced and older athletes who have trained for at least a year and are emotionally ready for competition. 

My club was invited by a private primary school to take part in a sports hall athletics competition on a Wednesday night which allowed me to attend because it replaced a training night. The event required another coach and myself to pick a team of 8 girls and 8 boys to take part in a range of field and running activities. Then the event would be completed with 2 relays which would include the majority of both the boys and girls team. The competition itself was well run by the teacher of the school and it was really exciting as a coach seeing the athletes execute what they have been coached over numerous sessions. 

With the highs of seeing the athletes succeed there were some low points in terms of picking the team, I found that I was going against my philosophy and beliefs by picking a team. I believe that every athlete should have the same opportunities to progress and gain experience which will develop them as an athlete and as a person. I found it difficult picking an athlete over another however, this had to be done. Looking back the process wasn't easy and seeing athletes asking the other coaches if they had been picked and then being told no was also distressing. Another issue arose when a talented athlete was picked to compete who would challenge the strongest runners in the county and they refused to run, this was down to nerves, he got himself worked up and started crying because of the pressures and nerves that competition brought on him. Again, I found this really distressing and felt responsible and guilty that this happened. There were another 2 athletes that expressed they were experiencing a lot of nerves and resulted in tears once again. 

A lot of questions arose from the competition and these questions challenged my beliefs as a coach. One of the questions were 'Would I pick a team for a competition again and put the athletes through the pressures of competition?' The answer is simple, No! I have 80 athletes on the registers and I could only pick 20% to compete and I felt that more athletes would have benefited from the experience and really I would argue that 50-60% were good enough to compete however, I had my hands tied in terms of how many athletes I could take and use for the chosen events. 

Seeing the emotions of the athletes before, during and after competition I am torn whether I promote competitoms in the same way that I would have before the competition in midweek. Competition has many benefits to the young athlete; they learn how to lose graciously with pride and sportsmanship, they also  learn some valuable experience of dealing with pressure and expectation. Over the course of the next 10 years the athlete will come across many pressures from exams, parents, sports and relationships, competitons at an early age can prepare them for life's challenges and pressures.  Competition can still be a hinderence for young athletes in terms of nerves and anxiety, the pressure that is put on them can take away the fun element. When the athletes are young it should be all about fun and following the long term athlete development model they shouldn't really be competing until they are a few years older.  

Reflecting on this experience I will still promote competitions however, I will make sure that all the athletes have the opportunity to take part and have a go. The competitions that I want to be involved in are ones that can accommodate all of my athletes not just a handful. I will create a fun, exciting and easy going  atmosphere so that the athletes will feel less pressure which will enable them to enjoy the experience that is competition. 

@dannymaynard92

How to Coach Disabled People

The course that I attended was really interesting in terms of how to coach disabled athletes, the course raises a lot questions in terms of how we as coaches include disabled athletes. The course was an introduction to the likes of Inclusive Coaching: Disability. 

We discussed the importance of observations, as a coach it is crucial to be able to identify when an athlete needs help and support. Some athletes with hidden disabilities and learning difficulties need support in terms of explanations and getting on with the tasks. Athletes with physical disabilities or visual impairments will need support with different equipment or other aids that can help them participate. 

The Inclusive Spectrum consists of 4 areas; one of the areas is Open Activity which is basically a simple activity based on what the entire group can do with little or no modification. For example a warm up activity. Another area is Modified Activity which is when everybody does the same activity with adaptations to challenge the more able and support the inclusion of everyone. For example catching a football in a group but with the less able use a balloon so that the participant has longer to see the object. Parallel Activitiy is another area when participants are grouped according to ability. Each group doing the same activity but at appropriate levels. For example both groups could be doing hurdling but the more able completing more coaching points. The less abled group will still do hurdling but at a more basic level according to their needs and ability. The final area is Seperate Activity which is when an individual or group does a purposefully planned different activity. For example tennis players would go into seperate groups because the disabled players have different rules to suit the players needs. 

We had an interesting discussion about not being afraid to do the seperate activities because you don't want to compromise the training of the able athletes however, you don't want to segregate the less able from the able as you want to promote inclusivity. It's finding the right balance between being inclusive and coaching the different athletes within the different groups. 

Coaching can be adapted by using a method called STEPS; Space you play on for example, the size texture and height of goals. Task is making the game easier by altering the rules for example making it easier to score. Equipment can be adapted with weight, texture, colour, shape and size. Position of the activity such as standing still first before performing it moving and making sure participant can orient themselves. Finally the speed of the activity, for example catching can be difficult for athletes with visual impairments however, by changing the equipment slightly this can alter the speed of the ball for example, using a balloon instead of a football because a balloon will stay in the air longer. 

To conclude, I felt the course was worthwhile because it raised a lot of questions within my own coaching and how the group I coach at is run. I would recommend this course because it doesn't cost a lot if anything if your with a clubmark accredited club. Thanks for reading any comments to feedback is welcomed. 

@dannymaynard92

Positive Behavior Management in Sport

Recently, I attended another Sports Coach UK course which was called Positive Behavior Management in Sport. I was interested in the course because over the years I have had to deal with disruptive and unwanted behavior as a coach. I wanted to know what I could do to prevent this and deal with the behavior as it has become an important aspect which I would like to improve on, this is because at the moment we have one or two athletes who misbehave. This is due to behavioral problems such as ADHD but one of the options of dealing with this was asking the athlete to leave the group. I firmly believe that this is not an option! I feel that if this happened I would be letting the athlete down as a coach and be going against everything I believe in, this is in terms of developing and improving the athlete as a performer and a person. 

The course was very insightful and made you think about your coaching environment. They explained that at times what you do as a coach can allow opportunities for unwanted behavior to arise. For example transitions between activities and activities that are too easy or challenging can lead to athletes losing their focus. Another interesting aspect was looking into why might a child misbehave, the course taught me about the social element. Children learn a lot from their parents and friends, this is a massive factor in what kind of things they say or do when they misbehave. The tutor explained that you have to take into consideration the area the athletes live in and this could perhaps influence what they say or do etc. These stereotypes are controversial and can present some useful information to coaches which should be appreciated however, it's important not to judge or hold against the child before you really get to know them. 

The way you talk to the athlete, who has demonstrated unwanted behavior, is crucial because if the coach shows negative language and body language the athlete may feel threatened and this can be classed as bullying; for example, looking down at them and shouting. If you challenge the behavior in a negative manner you could get a clash and a confrontation. This is not helpful for you as the coach, the athlete and the other athletes. Children copy behavior so it's important that you demonstrate positive behavior, this can be sitting them down rather standing or crouching, speaking calmly etc. 

To conclude, as a coach you can prevent unwanted behavior from arising by going in to more depth with planning. Planning the transitions and making sure that the session has progressions and regressions so that the athletes don't find the activities too hard or too easy. Finally, children copy behaviors they see and it is important to set a positive example for the children to follow. 

@dannymaynard92

Mentoring Other Sports Coaches

Just recently I attended a course which was all about how to mentor other sports coaches. I was really interested in seeing how I could help other coaches develop their coaching practice. I learnt that it's not really about sport specific content in some degree because that role is for the national governing bodies course tutors to provide sport specific knowledge. The role of the mentor is to develop the coach's coaching skills and principles. The tutor explained that a top skiing coach from Wales was a mentor for Beth Tweddle's coach, who if you didn't know Beth competes for GB in gymnastics. So that was interesting in itself with totally different sports which are delivered in different seasons and environments. This highlights that the coaching principles that you pick up on national governing body and university coaching courses are universal to some degree.

A theme that ran through the course was reflection, I think reflection is crucial in coaching because you can explore into what happened and why things happened. You can learn a lot about yourself and your coaching by dissecting what you coached and how you coached it. The tutor added, to get the best out of the mentee it is important that you don't spoon feed them, you allow them time and the opportunity to ask questions about their own practice. Other ways that the mentor can help the sports coach is observing their practice, the mentor would agree with the coach when the observation is going to take place. The mentor would arrange a meeting to provide feedback, the tutor explained that it is important how you feedback to the coach. He suggested the sandwich method, (praise, possible improvement, praise) all coaches use this when working with athletes but sometimes you don't give the method any thought when working with adults. 

I found the course really helpful and interesting because I want to help other coaches develop and share my passion for coaching. The other attendees were a bit curious why I was on the course, this was in terms of my age but they were impressed with my experience and my knowledge that I have gained over a 4 year period. This led to a discussion on mentors being younger than the mentee, how it's nothing to do with age but experience. Age can be an advantage in terms of life experience however, it comes down to coaching experiences and the ability to guide and allow the coach to use their intrinsic feedback to reflect on their sessions. Finally, the course looked into looking how the coach learns and this looked at the VARK method, The acronym VARK stands for Visual, Audio, Read/write, and Kinaesthetic. As a mentor the coach's learning style should be considered as this can have a massive impact on their ability to learn. 

In conclusion, the course was really intriguing and has given me some pointers and guidance on how I can be an effective mentor. I strongly recommend the course to people who are interested in mentoring other sports coaches. The course is well run and is great value, in some cases it's free for club mark accredited clubs. For more information look on the Sports Coach UK website. 

@dannymaynard92

Would appreciate your comments and views

Are Children Becoming Less Active?

In this post I will explore my sporting experiences as a child and compare them to what I see young children doing at present times in terms of sport. I will highlight current issues and current attitudes of children and parents. 

I have had excellent sporting experiences within my childhood, I used to regularly go to local astro turfs and play football with my dad. When it was the school holidays and I was sent to my grandma's house for a week, she would take me to play football and cricket at local fields and parks. Due to this I feel that I have been lucky in terms of positive experiences and exposure to sport but I feel that children nowadays will not be taken to parks by their parents or family members. On a sunny day many children would rather stay in and play games rather than going outside on a local park or field to play with friends.

Attitudes have changed over the last 10 years with children and parents being more cautious about playing outside due to potential threats and dangers such as abductions and traffic. When I was a child these were issues but not as serious as they are now, traffic on the roads is a bigger issue with more and more cars on the roads. I think that it should be compulsory for children to join sport clubs, as they can choose any sport they want, they can develop not just skills but also develop character and social awareness, another positive of joining sports clubs is the safety and security of the child there will always be an adult watching. Children are playing out less and less so it would make sense to get them into safe fun organised clubs or activities regularly. 

In my opinion, I think families need to play a bigger part in developing their child's attitude and enthusiasm for sport. This can be done by finding a local field or park and having a kick around or play games outside, I have seen and heard on many occasions young children playing in a tiny back yard blasting a football around while the parents stay inside and watch television. There are two fields close to them, one is 50 yards away and the other one is 300 yards away, why not take the children on the fields and let them run free and play football in a spacious facility under supervision from parents? Issues with this are working commitments, for parents who work they can find making time to go local parks a challenge. I can relate to this with my mum working nights this was rarely an option but I can't stress enough the importance of support from parents, my parents made an huge effort to organise lifts and opportunities for me to join clubs so that I wouldn't miss out on having a sporting childhood. 

To conclude, I have had fantastic opportunities and experiences of sport from a very young age and this has been the catalyst for my passion and love for sport. My family has been instrumental in creating sporting experiences for me, not many people can boast slide tacking their grandma at football and then she slide tackling you back! Making use of local facilities and decent weather can help ignite children to be enthusiastic and passionate about sport. 

Any comments or experience can be posted here or on twitter.

@dannymaynard92

Parental Issues Within Coaching

This post will discuss current issues with parents in a sports coaching and teaching environment and also look into what problems coaches face in terms of parents. 

Parents can be a massive hindrance to the coaching process in terms of interfering with the coaching taking place. Sometimes parents can give advice to their son or daughter but this can go against what the coach is trying to do. On the other hand parents can play a useful role in reinforcing what the coach is trying to do and this can result in positive impact on the coaching process. 

After speaking to another coach, he explains that in grass roots football parents provide many challenges for him as a coach but also for the officials. The coach works with an under 14's football team and has experienced some poor behaviour by the parents. When an official told the opposing team's manager to get off the field because he was actually standing on the pitch, the parents and other coaches started hurling abuse at the referee and this filtered down to the players. The players joined in with the parents and coaches abusing the referee and the coach who i spoke to said that the official handled it really well and stopped the game to ask the coach "Is this the example you set for your players?"

At times parents can be a coaches worst enemy and it is the same with teaching, teachers nowadays are afraid of giving students detentions because of the hassle the teacher will get off parents. When I discussed this with a few coaches, we came to a decision that if we all had a child that was in trouble we would back the teacher or coach. We would be more interested in why the child has been in trouble, because we would have raised the child better than that and they should be able to follow rules. 

In my experience I have found that too many parents wrap their children up in cotton wool. Don't get me wrong I don't want parents too care less about their children, however when they go to coaching sessions and tell their children that 'they don't have to do anything they don't want to do' this makes it difficult for the coach. Attitudes like that can spread around a group very quickly and I found this out the other week; one child in the group didn't want to run around the track for the warm up and because the child objected this resulted in a few of the other children sitting out of the next activity. 

Today's society is making it very difficult for coaches and teachers to control groups of children, this is because if the child gets told off and tells their parents the coach or teacher will have to deal with the aggravated parent. My advice to parents is to support the coaches and teachers, I understand the child will come up with the excuse of "everybody else was doing it" This doesn't excuse the behaviour and if the child has been made an example of then the teacher or coach should be praised for taking control of the situation and not be challenged. 

To conclude, children will copy their parents behaviour so it's important that parents set a good example for their children to follow. Coaches should be supported by parents as they will always consider the welfare of their participants and they wouldn't put their welfare in jeopardy. The parent should be more concerned as to why the child is misbehaving instead of 'having a go' at the teacher or coach for telling their child off.

Are Fitness Sessions Neglected in Session and Training Programmes?

In this post I will discuss whether the fitness component is being neglected in sessions and training programmes, the post will also look into the experiences I have had as an athlete and a coach in terms of delivering and taking part in fitness work. The benefits and repercussions will be explored to highlight the impact of fitness training. 

In my opinion I don't think coaches pay enough attention to fitness within their sessions and to be honest I never really thought too much about it. Over the last few months this had become more apparent to me because I have witnessed children between the ages of 8-13 not being able to run a lap around the track without stopping. Another example is watching a friend's football team who are  under 14's, I found that a few of the players where getting fatigued 20 minutes into a game, this was really surprising because the game was a friendly so the intensity of the match was lower than usual. 

As a coach this made me think about what I do in terms of fitness with my athletes, currently I don't really do too much circuit work due to facilities and the age of my participants however, in the new meso cycle I have planned a lot more fitness/circuit stations that I will incorporate into my sessions. For example a few circuit stations that are planned within the next few weeks will consist of activities such as; skipping, burpees, speed bounce, step ups, medicine balls, squats and I am looking to invest in some resistance bands. 

As an athlete I have experienced first hand the benefits of circuit sessions, they help focus and train other aspects of your training for example core stability. As a young distance runner I never really understood how important core stability really was until i became a coach and studied sports coaching at university. by having a stable core you are able to utilise and use all the benefit from a movement without wasting any unnecessary energy. Circuit sessions can be fun because you can work with partners and the stations are different every time so motivation is high. 

There are a lot of benefits of physical and circuit training, if the athlete or player is physically fitter and stronger theoretically they should be able to execute skills longer into competition and perform to a higher intensity. Also circuit sessions can help athletes develop and improve their technique in a range of activities for example, using medicine balls to help with explosive movements which can aid events such as; shot put and hammer etc. Circuit sessions are also helpful in injury prevention as specific exercises can help strengthen tendons and ligaments. There is an opening to work on muscular endurance and muscular strength in this type of training and this opportunity can be rare for many coaches because of facilities and equipment. Circuits can train all parts of the body where as if you did a normal sport specific session a few muscles groups will be missed or not be worked as much as they should. 

Some repercussions of circuit training are that the athletes must be able to perform the movements correctly as incorrect movements can cause injuries. The coach has to be cautious when using weights with young athletes as again incorrect movements can result in injury. Circuit training is seen to be too generic and this is one of the reasons that coaches don't pay much attention to it but the beauty of this type of training is that you can develop it and make as specific as you like. 

In conclusion, I don't think athletes and players do enough fitness work in terms of aerobic and circuit training. I as a coach have also neglected this area by not giving circuit and fitness training as much attention as I should in the past, however i will make a real effort to present my athletes with the benefits that circuit training brings in future sessions as from experience i have found that circuit sessions are fun and engaging because it challenges the performer in a different way.